Vehicles operating in an autonomous mode (e.g., driverless) can relieve occupants, especially the driver, from some driving-related responsibilities. When operating in an autonomous mode, the vehicle can navigate to various locations using onboard sensors, allowing the vehicle to travel with minimal human interaction or in some cases without any passengers.
Motion planning and control are critical operations in autonomous driving. However, autonomous driving vehicles could have a very complicated movement behavior than one would expect. Different vehicles running on different roads with different speeds and steering angles may have a different turning radius. Such different turning radius may have an impact on the control accuracy especially when the vehicle is making turns. In many situations, especially making a turn such as a U-turn, left turn, or right turn, a vehicle would skid sideways dependent upon the conditions of the roads. Such sideslip or skid can cause a control error, and it sometimes is unsafe to the passengers riding in the vehicle.
In addition, it is important to determine or predict a vehicle's status or state in a next processing cycle based on its current status and executed commands. However, there is no sophisticated method available for such a determination or prediction.